The Eleven SEGA “Zeldas” (GIFs)

This is an awesome thread for highlighting these games, and showing the similarities and differences.

I think it's unfair when some of these games get called Zelda clones, though. There's an unhealthy tendency to view history around Nintendo games in recent years. Golden Axe Warrior is certainly a blatant one but stuff like Golvellius differs a lot, and most of its similarities are just shared genre conventions that predate Zelda.

Crusader of Centy looks fucking rad, I need to give it a whirl sometime

How have this many people not played crusader of centy wtf. I know Landstalker has had later releases but always assumed they were around the same level of popularity.

Also has the deepest lore

I already knew about a good deal of these, but Crusader of Centy somehow completely slipped my radar. Something about those gifs really sell me on it, the game looks really fluid. Definitely gotta check it out.

The only one I've played is Beyond Oasis. I like it quite a bit. It's definitely visually appealing. OP compares it to aLttP, but I'd say that it's sort of a middle ground between Zelda 1 and aLttP where it's fairly light on story and has more arcadey dungeons but is a lot more straightforward than Zelda 1 is. It doesn't really feel as nice as any of the Zelda games but it's fairly well designed in most regards.

Bro, few post leave me in wonder. This one left me feeling in straight awe.

Excellent work TC. Enjoyed reading and learning all of this. I never knew any of this but I want to play through a few of them now.

Soleil/Crusader of Centy is superb.

I found it in a 2nd hand store way back in the day and convinced my dad to get it. One of the finest games on the system and I loved it just as much as LttP.

If you managed to miss it, you won't regret your time with it.

another fantastic OP from a fantastic poster - excellent work on the comparison gifs as well, mama

i adored Golvellius as a kid (still sad we never got the sequel the ending promised!), and as much as i love OG zelda there's an argument for golden axe warrior as a superior take, yeah.

crusader of centy is crazy underrated. tragic how expensive it is these days...and id never seen Linkle Liver Story before, thanks for putting me onto that one!

Really neat. Now curious about Centy

Fuck, i want to play Crusader of Centy.

lordmrw said:

Its embarrassing but Ive had Linkle Liver Story for almost 15 years and still have not played it.

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i was just thinking ive had shining wisdom forever and its a crazy short game i really should tie up one day

Manu said:

It's a great game, you really should.

And it's got a great story too! One of the first videogame stories to ever made me feel bad about myself at the end.

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agreed!

I always loved Golvellius and would put it up against the 8-bit Zeldas any day of the week. Wonderboy in Monsterland is also absolutely incredible. Deserves to be put on the mantle with the generation's best action adventure games.

Great OP.
Soleil (Crusader of Centy) was awesome.
Also Shining Wisdom was meh for me, even as a kid, but there was something about this game that kept me going back to it. I loved the ambiance, the (blurry) graphics.

Of the games I've played in the OP, Crusader of Centy was the best, even though I never beat it... need to fix that in the near future.

Everyone should play Crusader of Centy. It's great.

Great thread!

Beyond Oasis was so good that I wish I can find a way to play the sequels. Hoping Sega would re-release all these games some day.

I hope someone curating SEGA Ages games sees these threads.

Awesome thread!
I bought Crusader of Centy, or Soleil, as its called in Europe, a few years ago. I didn't play a lot of it, but it's a really interesting game. Forgotten by a lot of people. I think I'm pretty knowledgable about the MegaDrive, but I never really knew about the game until a few years before that. I wonder how much it sold back in the day.

MKR is an extremely unappreciated game, thanks in part to being the last Saturn game ever released in the US.

First thank you so much for these thread mama robotnik! They are always a blast to read and I usually learn a few new things from them. Secondly wow I knew Sega had a few Zelda clones but I didn't realize how numerous they were. Not mad about it though, as they all look interesting and you made it sound like most of them try to do their own thing. Finally excuse me as I hadn't seen your first two threads! Now excuse me as I am off to read them.

Actually I don't do this often but I'm gonna follow you. I know it doesn't do anything but I feel like it's the best way for me to show my appreciation for all the work you do.

Magic Knight Rayearth looks rad

Fantastic thread, OP. I've always wanted to read about all of the Zelda-like games Sega had on their consoles.

I need to go back and finish Centy. I was fortunate enough to obtain a complete copy last year for a very reasonable price. It's truly an excellent game.

Thank you for this, I had completely forgotten about the Oasis games, now I need to find a way to replay them .

Gamefan's coverage of Legend of Oasis convinced me to buy it back in the day and I'm glad I did, because I absolutely loved it. And I was so hyped for Magic Knight Rayearth! It was probably my most anticipated Saturn game and Working Designs took forever to localize it! Unfortunately by the time it finally came out in the west the Saturn was dead and I was never able to find a copy. I'm still a little sad about it lol.

It's incredible how blatant some of those are, lol. Also this reminds me that I actually own Beyond Oasis on Steam but never bothered booting it up. Maybe I should get around to that one of these days.

I liked Crusader of Centry more than alttp. Is it legal to say that?

Crusader of Centy is a gem. Anyone who hasn't played it should.

First time hearing about Linkle... I'll definitely look into that. I still have my Saturn hooked up but haven't really used it for anything in a while. Still waiting for that wireless controller to come out...

Incredible work putting this thread together! Wow.

As someone that loves all the 2D Zelda games except LTTP, this makes me want to try some of these.

Wow, I've never even heard of Crusader of Centy, I'll definitely check it out.

Great thread. There's also a cool Japan-only action-adventure called King Colossus. I haven't played it yet, but I hear good things. There's a fan-translation apparantly.

Great op. I played the hell out of Golvellius and Soleil back in the days.

My parents still remark "that looks like Golden Axe Warrior" when they see 2D Zelda games because they played that one first.

Great Read, OP, thanks.

Wow, what a great post and impressive list. As a big Zelda fan, I thank the OP for putting it together, it definitely caught my interested and I will try some of those titles if I get the chance. Time to check out some eBay, I suppose.

Goddo Hando said:

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I rented this game loads from Blockbuster (UK) when I was a kid. Growing up I had forgotten the name of it but always remembered Sonic here. Thanks for this thread!

I still can't believe how good Beyond Oasis / The Story of Thor looks.

I loved Soleil (Crusader of Centy). I was six or seven years old when I played it, so I can only recall glimpses of the story, like losing the ability to speak to the human NPCs or the Tower of Babel, but I adored the animal companions and the fact that you could combine their powers.

The Story of Thor (Beyond Oasis) seemed harder at the time, so I spent more time watching my older brother play it.

Both are very underrated gems.

Wow!! Now I feel I really missed out. Maybe Sega will bring some of these titles to the Nintendo Switch.
They showed great support recently.

The Story of Thor games (Beyond Oasis) are superb. The Mega Drive one specifically is my favourite game on that system. An incredible action rpg with an arcade vibe.

Awesome thread op, some interesting games that I've never heard about before, though I'm surprised by how many didn't know about Crusader of Centy/Soleil.

OP doing Gods work

Nice thread. use to love Sega more than Nintendo back in the day. Love Beyond Oasis and it sequel,still plays great even today, wish Sega could remake or reboot it.

The graphical similarities of Golden Axe and Crusader of Centy to the Zelda games their mimicking borders on copyright infringement. o_0

Massive thanks for this, these are the kinds of posts I browse ERA in hope of finding!

I rented both Soleil and The Story Of Thor back on the day and loved both.

Beyond Oasis is still amazingly gorgeous to this day. I remember playing it on GP32 back in 2004, I think it was my first all-nighter on a video game. Still very good today.

Mama Robotnik I just want to say that in a sea of shit threads, this one is actually fantastic. Good job sir (madam? I dunno), good job.

and holy shit there was a sequel to story of thor? what? O_o

I remember Golvellius being cool. It wasn't one of my favourites on the MS, but I liked it enough. I remember the big red snake in the side scrolling part most.

Wonderful post. For some reason I thought Soleil and Story of Thor were the same game, and didn't know about the latter's sequel. Never had actually seen Soleil and it looks so great!

Huh, that's a lot of Zelda. This also explains why the Flagship Zeldas are arguably some of the best in the series, you basically had double the Zelda Teams from Nintendo and Sega.